Average 'normal zone' on a car oil temp guage seems to be 220-240 deg F which is over 100 deg C. I know aircooled engines run a bit hotter than a normal engine, so I'd have thought that boiling it at 100deg C would be just like a slightly cooler than normal opperating temp...?

I'm open to be correctdd though - just my logic ticking away.

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Looks like you definitely dodged a bullet when you decided to dismantle this engine. :beer:

Pete from Cogbox has a big cleaning tank under cover outside his workshop. I don't remember much about it but it was electrically powered, whether that was for a heater or a circulation pump or both I couldn't tell you. It didn't smell like it was full of detergent as far as I can remember.

He likes rescuing old 30hp engines and I'm sure that if you rang him he'd be happy to explain his cleaning process.

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Exactly the reason a few of us were urging you to remove it, even though you seemed very keen not too...:!: :wink:

Looking forward to seeing the internals, I bet there'll be a fair bit of "crud" in the case oil journals.

What I was trying to say was once the case is split not to boil it.if you want to boil it at operating tempurature make sure you have the case halts bolted back together.bolting together will prevent it warping.I don't mean with the crank and cam inside , just the case halfs together.it's just a precaution as castings do strange things when you heat them.don't ask how I know !

Writing from mobile so excuse lack of punctuation and smilies

good work, was wondering what was going on

boiling is good for engine and hands

Bit more progress tonight....

First job was to remove the crank pulley which the manuals and books claim sometimes comes off in your hands and other times requires a puller....

Well, it didn't come off in my hands - so borrowed yet more tools from my preferred free of charge tool rental source AKA Dad!





And this didn't work either! To be fair, the puller was at the absolute limit of it's size and as soon as it started to flex the pulley I decided to leave it for another day when I'll make a more suitable puller. No big issue. Gave it a squirt of plusgas though just in case...


I then turned my attention to the barrels and pistons. Before you can remove them, you need to remove a couple of baffels that looked alot cleaner in the Bentley manual.





The barrls should then just slide off...... yeah, whatever....

Once I'd removed a load of the gummy, gunky glue around the studs etc, and with a load of plusgas, they eventually came off after a lot of gentle wiggling and persuasion.





Next up was to remove the pistons. The pistons connect to the rods with a wrist pin that is held in place with two spring clips that need to be removed first.





The wrist pins then need to be pushed out the side of the piston. Let me tell you that this isn't something you do with your thumb! Having never done this before, I wasn't sure how much force was required to remove them, but according to the manuals and books, they need knocking out with a drift. Not knowing how much force the rods and crank can withstand I went at it very gently at first and got nowhere fast. I was surprised at how much force is required to get them out, but with lots of smaller taps, rather than heavy whacks, slowly but surely they came out, one by one.







I've kept everything in the exact same order and orientation as they came out. Not surehow important this is, but have done it none the less as it can't do it any harm.


I was now left with this....







The flash bulb on the camera makes everything look orange and rusty - it's not, it's just an oily coating that looks orange.


Jeez the motor is filthy. Which brings me to how I'm going to clean everything. I've been thinking about hot washes, boiling baths, washing powder etc, etc and whilst some have done this with success, I'm not going to do this. I've been advised by more than one source that a good initial soak in parafin and a going over with a stiff brush will do wonders on the first round of cleaning. Once everything is 'clean', I can then get in there with air lines and finer solvents in the later stages of the cleaning process. We'll see.

I guess the stars were aligned again, as next thing I know, and thanks to my 'aviation contact' I've got 25 litres of gas turbine jet fuel in my garage which is like parafin, only much better!

Result!





And that's where I left it, but to finish off, here's a shot taken from the garden to remind me of what all the effort is for...

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Great work. :d

Just got 2 rather sexy smooth V-Belts in the post!!!! Look the dogs b*****ks proper V-Belt.

Ill fit them after I fix todays nightmare, central tunnel front bush has ripped off its tunnel mount, luckily the car limped out of St pauls in bristol where I was showing girlfriend the roughest part of the city, I laughed and said you don't want to break down here and nearly did!! Got from Bristol to Exeter devon all in 4th gear.

Anyone got a pic of the tunnel without the bottom plate on??

Will let you know the fit of the belts which are true 9.5 x 905 smooth belts

I'll take rmy successes in whatever size box they come in, and today's was a tiddler.

Family duties meant that I didn't get into the garage until mid afternoon where I spent a frustrating couple of hours trying to get the crank pulley off.

I tired all the usual tricks - heat, pulsgas, pry bars etc and eventually made my own two jaw puller. . . which broke. . . twice.

I make hooks to go through the square holes in the pully out of threaded bar, and they snapped unter the tension!

This thing really was on tight, so I decided to leave it a while and clean the outside of the case instead. Nothiong too clinical, but enough to make the initial jet fuel bath more effective - white spirit and a tooth brush. Looks a lot better now.

Once I'd finished, I decided to make another puller for the crank pulley, but this time a lot more heavy duty. Amazed at how much force it took to remove, but was relieved when it finally gave way and came free.








Cleaning the case was a messy, but satisfying job.





Next up I loosened all the case bolts. I undid them all a little at a time to prevent any undue stress on the case. Needn't have worried, it's stuck solid. Why am I not surprised. :lol:

Here it is, clean(ish), bolts loose and ready to be split appart. At this point my dinner was on the tale and by the time the kids had gone to bed, I washed up and called it quits. Not much but a step closer.







Next up - split the case. . . any clues on how to break the seal open?

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Nice work LT.:beer:

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Hi

You must have loads of patience( i have very little) to continually be taking pics at every stage. When I did the 65 all i could think of was getting the job done! My photography took place just before I left for work at 7:45am. I must post my full rebuild process as I have loads of pics at all stages.

Keep up the good work

Cheers

Ps the Techtyl is excellent to add Patina back to your engine, especially carbs as it looks like old fuel.

Am I over doing it on the pics?

I always love threads with lots of pics - makes them more interesting to read.
Hopefully they will provide help or guidence to a newbie one day?

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Word of warning after my shift rod seizure, After waxing the central tunnel make sure you thoroughly de-wax the shift rod, I didnt and as a result the shift hanger broke off when it seized, tunnel has to be cut into to get at the hanger

No! I love this thread and the pics really make it. I study each one intently and as you say, it'll be a great reference in the future for people (not just newbies) carrying out similar work.

Keep it up! :wink:

Mike

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Hi All

What we all need is an artistic director.May even be able to get some sponsership....'Snap On?"

Keep up with the pics, I find it interesting too.

Cheers

What a very excellent thread,pictures are great...don't stop.
You really are a very quick worker,really suprising how quickly you are progessing that and doing an excellent job as you go along.
Must be that Wirral air.

Finished redoing the tunnel disaster, will never break again.

Put my 9.5x905 belt on, fits perfectly with the full 10 shims on the inside

LT mail me on [email protected] a good addition to your braded fuel pipe,my advice get a half dozen and go from there

And a few more hours in the garage this afternoon....

I wanted to pull the oil pump before I tried to split the case so modifiled my home made crank pulley puller to act as an oil pump puller. I must admit, I love making my own tools, despite them being a bit rough round the edges.






The back of the oil pump for those who want to know what it looks like...





I double checked and tripple checked that I'd removed all the fasteners before trying to split the case. Using a block of wood on some of the overhanging case tabs here and there I gently tapped whilst pulling on the generator stand and it slowly began to split. Result!











I carefully liften out the crank, cam, pushrod guides etc and rested them on the bench. On the initial quick glance inspection, I'm delighted at the condition of everything in there. There is very little sludge or debris, and the cam, crank, bearings etc look fantastic which supports the low mileage and regular maintenance. Obviously I'll need to clean and strip further and mic everything up etc, but so far, I'm wedll pleased. A milestone has been reached.

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Looking good, the rear thrust bearing should be a nice TIGHT fit in the case or the bearing will start to move after the rebuild (My first mistake).

It certainly was - it brought the crank up with the case half when I lifted it off!

Today was inspection day to assess the general condition of the engine.
I was not disappointed!

Firstly, I dumped the pistons and cylinders in a bucket of jet fuel to gauge its performance – it’s not a boiling vat of acetone that’s for sure, but it does soften the crud so that a tooth brush removes all but the stubborn carbon deposits on the piston crown. I’ll leave them overnight and check tomorrow what affect it has. I can see plenty of brake cleaner still being used though.

We’ll start with the dullest picture first…





Just before I removed the rods, I checked the rod side clearance at between 0.25mm and 0.30 from rod to rod which is well within the tolerances of new parts and a sign of things to come…
I removed the rods and made a note of what bearing came off which rod, identifying them by the stamped rod number, and also what rod came from which journal etc.
In work, my business cards come in little clear plastic boxes, I always new they’d come in handy one day so collected a load of them from my colleagues to use as component trays.







Here, I noted which wrist pin came from which piston and in what orientation along with the retaining clips. Sad, I know…







The crank laid almost naked for the first time in 53 years.







I was now able to use my (Dads) digital vernier to check various bearing and journal sizes.

No1 main journal and bearing…







This gives a clearance of 0.08mm. The Bentley manual says the tolerance gap for new parts is 0.047mm to 0.102mm with a maximum wear limit of 0.19mm which means I’m bang in the middle of what new parts should be. What a result! I did check all the journals and bearing for ovality too and everything was as near as perfect as you could ask for.

Same for the No 4 journal and bearing….







A clearance of 0.08mm against new part figures of 0.031 to 0.83mm with a maximum wear limit of 0.17mm so again, within the tolerance of new parts.

I measured the remaining main bearing journals and they are exactly the same and without any evidence of scoring excessive wear or other damage.







I then inspected the condition of the big end bearings and rods internals and was again, pleasantly surprised at how little wear is evident.







Please forgive me but…. My crank ROCKS !!!





Sorry, couldn’t resist.

At this point, I’m over the moon with what I’ve found internally. The car has only 36,000 miles on it with evidence of frequent oil changes and this certainly shows to be the case judging by how fresh everything is.
I have decided that due to the low mileage and total originality of the motor, and on how little use it will get when on the road, on this occasion, I’m going to reassemble it will all the original components, albeit, checked and thoroughly cleaned. I had a similar look at the cam, which is spot on, even the piston ring gaps are like new. I’ll check and double check again of course, but other than the valves etc, this is one lovely motor and I see no reason to throw parts at it when the ones it currently has are within new part tolerances.

The next few days are going to be spent cleaning, cleaning and more cleaning…. Joy.

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